Metal Gear Ocean: The Rhyme of the Mariners
by Interfuge
Summary: Strategic Predator Operations. A legendary soldier dances dangerously close to finding the key to his past in the midst of an oceanic war by proxy between PF's and Cipher's expanding control. This story is written to be as canonically accurate as possible and as close to the Metal Gear aesthetic as artistically possible.
1. Prologue

_"How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by storms to the cold Country towards the South Pole; and how from thence she made her course to the tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific Ocean; and of the strange things that befell; and in what manner the Ancyent Marinere came back to his own Country."_

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

* * *

 **F** or a few seconds, smoke was all I could see. Air struggled to reach my lungs, even though it felt dry and cumbersome to my singing skin. My flesh felt like immolation, and once I looked down, I had the pleasure of discovering that it had indeed been the source of the smoke. I was burning. This is what burning felt like.

The battlefield became a blur, and the rest was repetition. Void flashed the world in sanctimonious mortification. I was purified; they were purified. Absolved. Officiated, put to rest. When my sword caught on some unfortunate bastard's helmet strap, I couldn't help but to feel like Archilochus, condeming the Thracian soldier's grasp of my abandoned, proverbial shield. All I had left to count on rested in my nervous, muscular, and skeletal systems. An arm swung at me, but without the proper reach, so I grappled, rotated, and pulled as I swept under the enemy, using his arm like a sailor hauling masts to heave his skull into impact on the deck. It sucked for him that his helmet wasn't there, because he was still breathing after that. I only know that because I saw his diaphragm expanding; the only breathing I could hear was my own. And it was only thing I could hear.

Soon enough, I swung semi-corpses around me like a drunken puppeteer, struggling to stand by leaning my weight on the force of my enemies' attacks. Death? No, I couldn't die yet. The fireteam was down, having stuck too closely together in the fray of the attack launched on the ship. That meant the sonar method must have been successful, it wasn't some Mujahid ploy. Alas, they weren't the only ones on the ship. I was nearing around 70 takedowns at the moment and each of my ribs wanted to remind me of that. Would I fret? Of course not. Pain was... tender. Cliches aside, it felt like the light at the end of a tunnel. Or so the world looked to be, before a noise brought me back to attention.

My earpiece buzzed, "Wild Fox, this is the Mr. Mujahid. We received your coordinate and we hope Allah shines on you as brightly as your fabled blade does to the profit of the Jihad. We hope to arrive at a mutual understanding: the safety our own forces must be guaranteed, and as such we can plan no definite means for your survival other than the providence of information. This ship will sink in T-Minus..." I didn't pay attention, I was lost in the shock I felt in each step taken towards the starboard. Silence cradled me past numerous guards, all searching and securing the perimeter with the accuracy of a pirates in siege. Too many holes and peg leg gaits. I darted from each obstruction to the next, kicking off the top of the last to enter a foray of MotionArt.

Developed primarily in the 1920's, parkour had little review in the military of the world, but the French Army was known to adopt some of it into training. As a result, several African combatants found themselves up to the task of modifying it for the use of one in battle gear. My sneaking suit; however, made each motion all the more optimal, allowing me to save energy and perform it even while my body neared a state of catatonic shock. Pain cheered on each step. I lept up a pipe to run three horizontal steps off the command bridge wall. The last wall step had been prepared with the motion of the first, so I had enough energy to propel myself over a 5-story gap into a roll landing on a barge container only two stories down. The roll had enough finesse to get me safely up and running out of it, but not enough to do so painlessly. My body ached passively, despite all of the stimulation, and my technique accordingly faltered. Time was running out.

I looked three stories down to the deck and find two more soldiers directly beneath me. Calmer, more experienced. Heavy machine guns, not a single clip yet replaced. I looked back to myself. My skin was red, only just stopped smoldering (my sweat had increased due to the intake of pentazemin, and it allowed my singed flesh to hydrate and proximate homeostasis. I was becoming useless, and the ship was sinking. I needed a way out. I crawled on the top of the cargo, grasping a musty, damp blue tarp. It was thick and smelled like the brine of the sea. As my fingers slid across its moist surface, they picked up the subtle texture of seaweed. A firmer grasp caught the edge of a hefty barnacle. This would do. I curled, grasping the barnacles, and began to smother myself. Soon, pain told me to stop. After I had so carefully sifted my environs, I planned an exfiltration route as our accompanying guerrilla forces triangulated the ship's location, promising me no amends to safety. Charming of them. Finally, I had finished lethargically tethering the mantle before rolling off my back into a pitfall below, extending my legs and arms through the briny tarp.

"Boris, what's that noi-" one of the soldiers looked up, yelling in Polish, " _Topielec_! _Topeil_ -" My cushioned weight broke his sentence, and his cowering skeleton broke my fall. Th other guy tried leaping out the way, but the tarp had acted like a primitive parachute against the heavy sea winds earlier, as I intended it to. It decelerated my fall and extended its reach, collapsing over the dodgy guard. Barnacle mass took his consciousness out for me. Exhausted and serendipitous, I immediately rose, simply for the sake of keeping my body moving. I had to secure my own consciousness. I couldn't keep drifting out at this point. I would die.

I had other units on the ship, of course. They took care of the command bridge 45 minutes ago, to prepare for about now, when the ship strikes a torpedo in frenzied navigation control. So I was completely alone when two auxiliary fireteams followed the sound of the collapse, closing in on my position from about 30 yards away.

On the other side of the ship, the sea erupted. There it was. Perhaps the Mujahid's information wasn't designed to kill me at all. To keep things safe, I stuck to starboard side. Earlier he said Port, but I needed to take a precaution in case they were wary of me attacking them. Alarms flared in the sky, soldiers screamed, babies cried, who cares. Ships sink every day. Explosions are only a distraction from the mission. To let them control you is irrational. Frank. Frank, stop it. Pull yourself out of there. Frank! Motherfucker. Good. *heave* Good man.

Like a murderous deus ex machina, The ship began to capsize. The soldiers meant nothing anymore. The world, as far as I had known it, became dark, blue, amorphous oblivion. I felt my tank staring at me in the distance. I remember not knowing where it came from. Bleak, consuming. Deprivation. Chaos. I flew off the cargo loading bay with a small amount of the personnel, causing them to detect me. I dove. I struck. I ricocheted between their spines as we plummeted under what was once our horizon. The world was upturned. Sirens drove their maddening melodies though grenade-rung ears. And for once, I could hear more than my own breathing:

Once I fell completely towards the waters below, they all tried to steady their weapons, crying, "демон! демон!"

And I couldn't help but feel like Snake.

 _ **Metal Gear Ocean**_

The Rhyme of the Mariners


	2. A Ship in The Harbor

_Chapter One: A Ship in the Harbor_

15:14:32  
Saturday, June 25th, 1977  
MOBY, Caribbean Sea

It was a warm, sunny afternoon that smelled of sea salt and drivel when Black Cat fell from Strata Superior on to the Lower Deck. Surprisingly enough, the crew remarked that he at least landed on his feet. A Viking funeral proceeded the company, and the body was shipped out to sea as seen fit for a warrior from Norway. He was a boy from Oslo, deployed by the USSR in a sting operation that put him up against the best and brightest unit in the Caribbean Seaboard, comprised of AWOL specialists skilled in OSP. These vets all formed a new, privatized generation of the once-disbanded Force Operation X (FOX), once under the command of Zero in Operation Snake Eater.

A few friends would be drinking in Black Cat's honor tonight, and so they mournfully departed from cleanup duty to the Mess Hall after they had been allocated their weekend-long Inebriation IDs, a controlled form of splendor designed to keep morale up without burdening the soldiers with medical ails or softening luxury. Strut A-1 was mopped clean, or as clean as an recently-destroyed base could afford to be. Squeegees, submerged in chemical cleanser, scraped the blood into the ocean below, ebb and flow. Work-loaded soldiers in their final, desperate sprint before their annual furlough (with limited inebriation access) had cleaned the deck and prepared it for the arrival of a head figure to VULPES, a veteran of the US Navy who had large reputation for defending and retrieving active duty soldiers in skirmishes around the Middle East, Lebanon, and Somalia. His testing results showed that he had a genius-level aptitude in the categorization of arms and munitions, and the story goes that he was once a red-blooded patriot. So the crew took to calling him Desert Eagle.

The US government had provided the the area to VULPES after they stormed the place out in a highly secretive mission a few months ago. For now, it would serve the new FOX unit, VULPES [Viable Unit for Logical Pursuit, Espionage and Siege] founded by soldiers of fortune in the employ of the United States of America. Desert Eagle, Frothing Crab, Vulcan Wolf, and the mysterious Bright Fox were the flagship aces among the administration. Cipher had once backed the funding for the organization, but it seems to have had an upper-hand in diplomatic relations to the Executive Office after the election of a new president, allowing VULPES to finally bear its fangs and some semblance of independence. Friends of Naked Snake and other veterans of the FOX Unit, Sigint and Para-medic, were known to inhabit the command base from time to time, but most relations with them have been reportedly diplomatic so far... an unerring sense of formality began to creep in with each successive visit, and they have since departed from the premises entirely. Revolver Ocelot was known to keep in touch with VULPES infrequently, referring to their new, temporary home as the MOB:Y [Marine Occupation Base: Yankee] based off some legend of "Ahab and Ishmael's" old Mother Base. Also, he figured it would help to point fingers at some botched up jarhead op in case any of the occurrences were brought to public light.

Of course, it was 1977, one of the movies that had fascinated the world exactly month ago had been none other than Star Wars, which was unlike any movie Desert Eagle had ever seen before. Amusingly, he would wonder if he could arrange for the VULPES R&D Unit to develop laser-powered projectiles or plasteel armor for their newly-formed field operatives division. In fact, his mind occupied exactly that when he biologically confirmed access through the blast-doors of a seemingly abandoned edifice on the MOBY (D.I.C.K.). Thinking of Space Age technology and watching a few men finish clearing out the bloodstain of an unlucky Cat, Desert Eagle marched from a docked frigate into the heart of what resembled to be a naval armada's pit stop.

"How could you even mix an acrylic polymer with high-carbon steel? Parrot, you're not making sense."

"You're not making sense! You don't even know the bonding capabilities of acrylics? Carbon has many forms, and I think we can rely on the peripheral adaptability of its molecular structure to bind the-"

"That would take too much research and development. We're a mobile, self-controlled army, how would we even contact the kind of minds needed to make a poly-molecular-state kind of substance? Where would we go to extract that kind of material? Africa?"

"Africa! Wherever diamonds may be found, I'm sure that's where research would need to begin."

Frog chipped in, "Then why haven't you gone to Africa, yet, smartass?" Hound replied, "He's not even in R'n'D-"

"Smartass?" Feeling futile in response to Frog's scrutiny, Parrot avoided the topic by rolling back his shoulders, shaking his head in dismissal, and clearing his throat to otherwise repeat the subsequent rumors spreading around MOBY. All of this of course was heard by Eagle as he walked down the corridor, passing the unconcerned salutes of conversing soldiers. Because they were all veterans, the proclivities of duty were ingrained, but thoughtless at the cost of arrogance and false security. Some salutes were outright haphazard. Eh, whatever, they would learn. Adjusting to the discipline levels of soldiers-for-hire may have produced a bead of sweat on his brow, but Eagle didn't care much to wipe it off. For now, it kept him alert. It kept him unnerved.

 _Will this all really go off without a hitch? Will Fox live up to his reputation? We're dealing with the most dangerous men in the world when we operate in this Seaboard. I'd rather not have to sprint from guided missiles flying amok stern, port, and starboard._

Even poor Black Cat knew that VULPES wouldn't be staying there long, nor would it operate under that name for much longer. According to Bright Fox, Cipher would soon want to remove all traces of the "nuclear-contaminated base," and he motioned to manipulate them into launching a clean sweep set a month after VULPES planned to evacuate the premises. Until then, they used the MOBY Defense Initiative Command Kiosk [D.I.C.K.] for purposes of command, mess, bunking, extraction, and deployment. Worlds collided, meshed, and merged on the base, a cultural melting pot of ethnicity amidst the Mar Caribe. From socialites like Parrot, diplomats like Hopping Frog, and troublemaker grunts like Fire Hound to every other permutation of personality diagnosed by Carl Jung (perhaps some Freud would be appropriate as well), the system was teeming with unique and individual soldiers hand-picked from special forces units in the US and from its allies abroad. However, unlike the Mother Base that once stood in these waters, VULPES did not act with international sovereignty, instead working under the employ of the United States of America as an independent, subsisting PF for hire. The best money could buy.

The walk took long enough to dry his brow off for him as he checked to make sure he wasn't being trailed. Desert Eagle had finally arrived to the Command Scene, holding an unlucky name in a musty manila folder. He looked at Frothing Crab, dead in the eyes, and extended his arm before despondently releasing the beige document cluster. It fell almost like a leaf, pried open by none other than the fate of its own fall. The name may not have been visible from the folder, but her face was easily recognized by every agent in the clandestine briefing. The sound of gritting teeth and cocking hammers followed his grimaced words, "Orders from Brass..."

The gun still pointed the ceiling, but Fox knew where it would be pointed next. He stepped forward, having looked at the dossier of the target, and graciously took Desert Eagle's cold muzzle into his sternum. His words had an eerie calm to them, enough so that Crab and Wolf were able to slouch back on to the walls, hearts recovering from their once high BPMs. Eyes locked on the potential, but inert, fray:

"How many times have I asked you to trust me..."

Grey eyes peered through an armored baklava. A deviant geometric outline ran through the face of it in a layer of para-aramid synthetic fiber. It almost resembled the face of a fox, but Eagle couldn't help but think it was a reference to the operative's nomenclature. The man wore a highly-delevoped sneaking suit, as well. These were rare and expensive, so chances are he had either direct contact or direct funding from Cipher or something of that magnitude. It wasn't a surprise. After all, Bright Fox had been proven as the top infiltrator among VULPES, so he didn't carry much intimidation factor over this figure of legend, at least, not under the name "Desert Eagle." Notably, he hadn't equipped himself with any standard weapons. On the back of his waist, just above his buttocks, looked to be some dark stick of some sort... he used melee? How absurd...

"Four. Exactly. And everything since then has led up to this! So tell me. Who's on my team? Who's on her's?" His eyes dared not move from Fox; however, his neck couldn't help but aid his words and gesticulate towards the document as he spoke. It gave a menacing vibe throughout the cabin.

Fox persisted, "We need you to calm down. In fact, assessing her as a target is an anti-surveillance measure. We mean to extract her by the third objective, or else we won't have enough medical support to run us through the final gauntlet."

"Right," the gun slowly glided towards its holster. Eagle didn't even need to look where, "The refugees at Point Gamma would probably need Dr. Clark's immediate ass" the holster button snapped closed.

Fox cocked his head. He studied Eagle for what felt like just a moment too long, before resuming a military parade stance. While pacing. It was one of his idiosyncrasies, something about coping with so many people viewing at him at once. "Yes," the figure mused, "Precisely. We have installed this 'Dr. Clark,' as you've mentioned, as an objective of the second half of the campaign I've called to host. While she has recently broken off contact, we hope to eliminate her captors and escort her here to the MOBY for a more cooperative position in the leaderboard. Rest assured, Sigint. She'll be staying with us here on the base."

"That's a relief. We go a bit back, and-"

"But since when were you a lefty, Eag?" A sharp tip greeted his spine at the nape, inviting itself inside the bit of flesh just before the crack of his vertebrae, "And since when do we call Para-Medic 'Dr. Clark?'"

Once again, his brow began to perspire. All of his accomplishments had summed up to this. It was too much, it had to be some kind of bluff. Some kind of ploy to make him speak about something. Perhaps more anti-surveillance? "Anti-surveillance," he responded hesitantly, "I switch hands a bit to fool people on my shots. What are you on about, Fox? I just arrived on base here from my Frigate, access cleared through the doors, and-"

"And," Fox continued, to the utter bewilderment of the room, "You were emotionally compromised. Why? Don't tell me the sum of all of your combat has left you perhaps nervous? Also, using that particular entrance? That's not your protocol as a 'founding member' of VULPES." Eagle could hear his eyes roll through the infliction of his voice. The room seemed less confused with every word that leaked out of the man's mouth.

"And you responded to 'Eeg.' So we know you're not Sigint." Frothing Crab stood at attention. Vulcan Wolf clicked his safety off.

"Wait a minute-"

A muzzle glanced in the back of the dark man's neck. Cataclysm could only ensue.


	3. The Albatross Logs, Tape 1

|21:05:20|  
Sunday, June 26th, 1977  
 _The Albatross,_ Caribbean Sea

[ /Inspect_Unit: Unit #206052]

[ cifra=0 ]  
 **[ SurveillanceDisplay=True ]**

Personal Computations Input : *** ******* ** ******

* * *

[Access Confirmed ✔]

* * *

{Surveillance Display Recorded Video Log}:

 **[** ⌘ **]**

 **[ | | | | | | | | l |** **▲ | l** **| l | l |** **l | l | l ****l | l | _East_ | l | l | l | l | l** **| l | l | l **** | l | | | | | | | |** **]**

 **[Angle** : - **-1] _ _ [Zoom:  
**

 **·** **· ··············** **···· ······· ··· ·** **· ···** **··· ···· · · · · · · ·** **·** **··** **····· ········· · · · · · · ****· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·-** **···· ·····-· · · · ****· · · · ·**

 **{N}** **—-—- -—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-——--—-—-—--—-—······—-—-································ {S}**

 **[ _Press L1 for Intel_ ] _ x1]**

 **[** ⌘ **]**

* * *

 **Compass Key:** **  
▲:** Point Bravo, _Northeast Tower_

* * *

 **[ _ /playAudio ]  
**

[ _light static_ ] { _white noise_ : _ztzttzttzzzz_ }  
[ _ ***** gasp, single choke *****_ ]  
( **Infiltrator** ): _"Be quiet. Mind telling me where the restroom is?"_  
AI: ". . . . . . . . ***** _whirring_ ***** "  
[Infiltrator:] "Damn it!" [*IMPACT*] [* _tachikaze_ *]  
[*IMPACT*] [static] [static]

* * *

 **Cassette Tape** **,** marked " **Simon Hatley** ," accompanying **:**

( **Simon Hatley** ):

 _We are Day 3 into the investigation of an "inconclusive" military practice performed in 1970 under the jurisdiction of the CIA. The listed objective refers to the creation of an ultimate soldier, but all test subjects were classified as null, negative in operating, to the procedures. I, Simon Hatley, have reason to believe that this isn't true. Our friends at Cipher have recently tasked us with monitoring the San Hieryonmo incident from five to seven years ago for the purpose of finding a fugitive. I've already gone through the details of where this video occurs two logs ago, but the observation I've just made concerning this "ultimate soldier" is that he must not be too bright for using a melee weapon under OSP guidelines. Definitely acquired through unconventional means, because it's not issued in any existent military force. That brings me to believe he's a talent, and any further augmentation to his technique is auxiliary as to the rate of his strategic performance... This is important because it means that the subject is self-aware and capable of abstraction on a higher level, which the Super Soldier researchers insisted to deny in their testing results. Given the manner in which he interrogated this unit, I'd say that it wouldn't be too hard for him to procure a weapon of more lethal capacity. One that would be easier to use, like a knife, would make more sense here. But, sneaking around with a sword? On to the official video log examination._

 _Subject Item A, believed to be a sword, cuts off the feed after 2 hours of a thorough patrol. There is no trace of the infiltrator on the video feed whatsoever as it only follows the line of sight of the operative. The attack is suspected to be from a_ _ **Null**_ _, a_ _Perfect Soldier, who easily discovered and dispersed with one of our latest surveillance models with an off-site procurement in the San Hieronymo Peninsula. It is believed to be a machete, knife, or sword of some type; however, the sound of the swing was extremely high pitched, leaving us to believe that the weapon is a curved, metal blade. I've edited the sound descriptor data to include "_ tachikaze _" for the set pitch parameters it exhibits._ Tachikaze _is a Japanese term, referring to the wind displace by the proper acceleration of a firmly-gripped_ katana _; I believe it will be valuable to use this audio as a reference for his M.O. It should also be easier to track Null's activity through surveillance equipped with high definition audio software. These sword swings are the breadcrumb trail to examining the subject. No other video logs were able to be found, meaning this was the only unit he encountered, and the only unit that encountered him. There were three surveillance units, and he only dealt with one of them, despite encountering a lingual glitch in the AI's response systems, which hadn't yet been calibrated for abstract expressions. He most likely understood the unit was a mechanism and simply avoided contact with all further units as a precaution. He's crafty. There is no official report coming from San Hieryonmo that mentions any intruders. All externally mounted cameras were sabotaged, either by concussive force, detachment, explosion, or circuit malfunction, possibly but not probably done with the assistance of an accomplice. Null is a good ninja. He's not good enough to escape my logical fortitude._

 _In any case, I will be making my way to San Hieronymo to investigate further. I am currently aboard the private vessel funded to me by our friends at Cipher, and I am 4 days away from the coast. Until then, I will be periodically updating this log, as I have been the past two days. For now, this is Simon Hatley, signing off and getting a good night's rest._


End file.
